


Treading Water

by rin0rourke



Series: Outlines and Ideas [7]
Category: Rise of the Guardians (2012)
Genre: M/M, branstorm - Freeform, discount fic, outline
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-03
Updated: 2019-01-03
Packaged: 2019-10-03 17:18:44
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,614
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17288225
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rin0rourke/pseuds/rin0rourke
Summary: When Jack's iceberg ship is destroyed by a vengeful sea god, he is pulled from the water by an unusual and interesting person.





	Treading Water

**Author's Note:**

> Cleaned up an old Mermaid/Pirate AU brainstorm.

Okay so this is the classic Mermaid/Pirate trope

Only, as usual I flip roles. Bunny is the mermaid. and Jack is the Pirate except Jack isn't any Pirate. He's part of a ghost ship. He basically IS the ship. His ship is ice and mist, carried by the wind and ocean currents. An iceberg in the shape of a galleon.

He steals souls of the dead from other spirits who prey on humans at sea. He saves them and carries them safely to shore, or, if they die, to their final resting place.

Bunny and Jack both have their original origin stories, but they veer off in their life Choices. Instead of hiding underground making chocolate Bunny shapeshifts into a deep-sea creature and lives at the bottom on the ocean. One day Jack's ship is sunk by a sea god and he falls to the bottom of the ocean. By the time he regains consciousness it is too dark to see and too much pressure to move. He drifts, falling, falling, falling. So very slowly.

Then he feels a change in the current.

And something grabs him.

Jack can barely struggle, and doesn't need to breathe, but he feels the water rushing past him. It is so dark he fears he's gone blind. But he can reach for a touch what's around him. At first he's afraid they are tentacles from the fleshy feel, but after his panicking mind finds reason he realizes they are stiff and straight.

Arms, with elbows and hands.

There are arms locked around him.

Someone is pulling him through the water, but it is just so dark he can’t tell if it’s up or down.

Then, Jack can see something. Foggy at first, like a trick, his mind creating the image of shapes in the dark. Then more, a glow.

The glow ripples

The surface!

Jack can see, he can see his nose! Its weird, crossing his eyes to look at his nose, but he's scared and happy and confused and dizzy and the blurry outline of his nose makes him giddy.

The water is rushing by too fast to pull his arms up, they're obviously moving quickly. Then they break the surface in a jump and he almost blacks out. His body has iced itself in self-defense from the changing pressure and the air hurts like a million knives, but he can breathe, and gasping dizzying oxygen into his lungs he crashes back into the water with whoever, whatever, pulled him up. The rush, the thrill of that jump, how high had they leapt? And the drop! Falling backwards into the water.

It was amazing. So amazing he forgot to be afraid.

And the STARS!

They soaked the sky in frost, space frost, he cackled. He’s so happy. There was no moon, but he must have fell for hours, it had been late day when his ship was attacked.

The arms around him relaxed as they bobbed, and Jack breathed wonderful air. The ice melted off him quickly, cracking as he shifted, moving his arms and turning to look at his rescuer.

It was massive, he had seen mermaids and selkies before, some sirens, plenty of water nymphs and sea gods, but they all presented as human. This thing looked like a sea dinosaur, if said dinosaur decided to evolve into a human. He couldn't see well, but the stars offered enough light to make out the basic details, and his eyes were long since adjusted. Then Jack noticed the long rod sticking out from behind the… thing, his hero. His personal dinosaur lifeguard.

Was it okay to call it a mermaid? Merman? Dinoman? Dinomerman? Dinnerman? He didn't care. He was just glad it saved him.

Then the merman reached up and grabbed the long rod and pulled, and pulled, it was long. A spear? A harpoon? Some kind of- Holy Shit it was his staff!

His staff! Knocked into the water in the fight. That he hoped was floating but was afraid had sunk to the deep. Jack tried to grab it, letting go of his merman to reach and immediately started sinking. The merman grabbed him around the waist again and laughed. He hoped it was a laugh. Could have been one of those dolphin snort things, but it sounded like a chuckle.

Jack clutched his staff to him, it frosted over instantly and then started frosting the water around it, until Jack had a cushion of slush between his staff and him and he stared at his rescuer. Who was watching him back from dark eyes. Watching his staff, and him, both saved.

Jack threw his arms around those massive shoulders and gave the merman the biggest kiss he could. He didn't even care that it felt like wet dolphin or tasted like salt. The merman tensed, and the arm around Jack's waist tightened.

Then, just as Jack pulled away it seemed to overcome whatever shock it had and its other hand grabbed the back of his head, big enough to hold it like a coconut, and kissed him back. And Jack laughed into the kiss, because he was not at the bottom of the sea and he was kissing the weirdest looking mermaid in the ocean.

The merman pulls back, and chuckles with him, and that is definitely a chuckle, and mumbles something about narcosis.

Jack is shocked! It can speak! Well obviously it should be able to speak, everything can speak, even the wind can speak, but it can speak a language Jack understands!

Only when the thumb of the merman's hand is pressed to his lips does Jack realize he has been speaking the entire time. Every thought in his head has come out his mouth.

The merman is looking at him with such amusement and the giddy feeling fades, leaving Jack suddenly embarrassed.

"Better?" The creature asks, and Jack is confused, before he notices that the hand holding his head is warm and tingling from magic.

Jack pulls back some, and it lets its hand float in the water. It tells Jack that his body was trying to recycle the air left in his lungs before shutting that function down. It was normal in spirits that don't need to breathe, the body tries to accommodate before switching to emergency mode, but oxygen and nitrogen are different at certain pressures, and the air in his lungs became narcotic at such a deep depth.

He was, temporarily, high.

Jack is completely mortified and tries to put space between them, but the only thing keeping him afloat was the arm around his waist.

In the starlight, with a sane head, the thing looked freakish. Like the halfway point between an animorph book cover transformation. "What are you, some kind of manatee?" He asks, because of course he does, of course the first thing he says with a clear head is that.

The creature smiles down at him, he hopes it was a smile, and says "I WAS a Mauisaurus." But, he continues explaining, when a certain piece of driftwood with a spirit inside started sending out a magical S.O.S. he shapeshifted to grab it.

And Jack, on his way up.

If he was in too much of a hurry saving Jack's life to look more human, well that's just unfortunate, but Jack didn't seem to mind when he kissed him.

The merman was laughing at him, he could feel it in the tone of its voice. At least he thought he could. Jack is utterly humiliated. He hadn't been in his right mind, obviously, he snaps. And the merman shrugs, holding up his hands in a gesture of surrender.

 Jack, without the support, dunks into the water. He comes up sputtering, treading water to stay afloat. He hadn't realized so much of him had been out if the water until only his head and shoulders were exposed, now he stares up at the merman, who looks only waste deep and realizes just how massive he is.

Needing to regain some of his dignity Jack set to forming a small ice raft. “Well, thank you. For saving me." He said while the slush surrounded him like sea foam.

The merman crossed its, his? their arms and seemed to ooze smugness as they replied to him that he saved the stick, the stick insisted on saving him as well.

And Jack asked why a sea god would bother saving a stick?

The merman explains to him that magical flotsam often sinks to the bottom of the ocean and causes huge fights between bottom dwelling spirits that use the items to gain power in the Deep. It was easier to collect them and let them wash up on some beach for land spirits to deal with.

Jack admits that that is actually a good idea, his raft is slightly stable now, like a half-inflated airbag, and he wobbles as he tries to stand. He's still a little woozy, and flying is out of the question without his wind, who is nowhere to be seen. The merman puts two massive hands on his shoulders to steady him. He feels like a child, he is so small next to it, and also awkward, because he kissed it, oh god what had he been thinking he kissed it. That’s like kissing a seal.

“Thanks,” he says, using his staff to keep his footing and solidify the sloshing ankle deep water in the raft which began to form into more of a pontoon boat, and stabilized at that.

“Impressive,” the merman said, and Jack laughed.

"This is nothing," he says. "You should have seen my ship.”

 The merman asks if he needs help back to it, but Jack shakes his head, saying the god Yam destroyed it in a fight.

The merman is very interested in why an old god would be battling a little iceberg spirit, and Jack is offended. He is a WINTER spirit, he just likes to sail. Yam had a crab up his ass and picked a fight.

He doesn't mention that Yam also tossed a winter Blizzard up the New England coast. Jack doesn't exactly know where this merman's loyalties lie, but he won't risk pissing off someone that colossal in his weary state. Not when he can barely make a pontoon.

He asks instead, deflecting anymore questions about the fight, if he could have the merman’s name?

The merman lets Jack's shoulders go and inclines their head, introducing themselves as E. Aster Bunnymund.

“Long name,” Jack says. “I'm Jack Frost.” He holds out his hand for a handshake, and Bunnymund looks at it questioningly, then carefully grips it at the forearm like the Greeks and Romans did. Jack laughs at that, because the massive size of that gray hand completely encompassing his entire forearm is doing wiggly things to his stomach.

Then a wind spirit cuts across the water, and Bunnymund quickly pulls Jack into a hug, shielding him with his body. The wind hits him, spiraling around them both in rage. Bunny picks Jack up, fully ready to dive back under the water but Jack shouts in happy excitement. Wind, his wind! There you are you brat. Where have you been? Bunny is confused but lets the wriggling Jack down back onto the pontoon, who is then immediately scooped up by the wind and spun around, water brown off of him and frozen in a glittering mist.

Bunny stares at the floating boy laughing surrounded by stars and diamond dust and feels something he hasn't felt in centuries. A connection? A curiosity? He was amused and intrigued and interested in this small winter sprite.

Jack turns back to him, feet back on the pontoon and great big smile on his face and thanks him. He's good from here, he really doesn't know how he'd have gotten out of that situation without Bunnymund's help, so thank you.

Bunny asks if Jack is sure he's alright, and Jack reassures him. He has the wind and his staff, he two very best friends, and together the three of them can fly back to land. But hey, next time they meet, maybe Jack could show Bunnymund his ship? He's going to make a new one. Jack is so hopeful that Bunny can’t help but smile down at him, agreeing.

Jack asks if he's always in the deep, and Bunny tells him he's usually in warmer waters, Australia, New Zealand, those places.

Jack's from the New England coast. If Bunny ever wants to visit, he can find him there. Then Jack waves goodbye and flies off.

And Bunny fold his arms on the pontoon and floats, watching the dark shape against the stars until he can't pick it out anymore.

Sometime later Jack is hanging out on the coast, its early December  and he's singing a Christmas song, Santa Baby, as he hovers along the bow of his ship, newly named Drift. Studying the opaqueness of the ice, altering the colors from fogy white to blue to grey green. He's undecided between blending in with the waters and standing out. His sails are gone, he summons those when he needs them, and the wind is happily playing with sea spray on the deck. His masts are deep solid blue, the strongest structures on the ship, but if he made everything so compressed it would sink easier, and after last time he'd prefer something buoyant and easy to fix. He settles on an iceberg white, with plans to continue the debate later

Floating up, still humming, he settles on the beakhead to study his bowsprit rigging, carefully summoning a glittering square veil of frosted sails. The wind, noticing his creation, happily sweeps over to fill the two sails so Jack can study them efficiently. He's fiddling with the texture of the sails, finding what’s strong enough to work but simple enough to not take too much effort, when he hears a knocking.

His ship is pretty in tune with him, being made of his ice, so when something knocks against it he feels the vibration like boots on a hardwood floor. On guard he banishes the sails and calls the wind close. He's already dealt with one sea god tossing a winter hurricane at his territory, he's not about to be caught by some other sea-creature out to take a jab at him.

A dark shape, the size of a whale, swims under his ship, knocking against it, but they don't rock him, they sound like simple taps, like a knock on a door. He's tense. Searching the water, ready to take flight in an instant.

Then, lunging out of the water in a huge spray is a shiny grey and white beast, easily 60 feet in length. It looks like a whale at first, but misshapen. Jack, hovering above his rocking ship, sees the long-extended neck, and realizes its more if a loch ness monster creature.

Which jars him. Huge dinosaur rocking his boat and knocking on his hull?

"Is that you Bunnymund?" He asks, hoping he's correct and not about to fight another sea-monster. This has to be the first time in history someone has actually wished it was the guy they mistakenly made out with while high. The ugly guy he made out with while high. That tasted like fish. Maybe fighting a sea-monster wasn’t so bad?

The dinosaur resurfaces, almond shaped head at the end of the flexible neck turning towards him, and oh wow is this…. This is massive.

 Bunnymund, likewise, is flirting with someone who is only happy to see him in comparison to a sea-monster. These boys have low standards.

**Author's Note:**

> Jack wanting to bone the see monster before he ever sees the hot guy Bunny actually turns into is kind of sweet though
> 
> Jack doesn't even care about looks, he just really likes Bunny, and then he's rewarded with a hot guy, but his first reaction is just "this is odd and uncomfortable why are you changing into a human?" And they go back and forth before Jack just says "just, just be what YOU'RE comfortable with, don't worry about me being attracted to it." So, Bunny turns into his Pookan form and Jack just, STARES. Because holy shit what? You’re the Easter Bunny?  
> Uh, Bunnymund should have been a hint.
> 
> But Jack spends all his time out of winter at Sea, so he's very out of touch and okay so the fur will take some getting used to but yeah, Jack can live with this.


End file.
